Fear and Love God
Our assignment this week was to write a 2 page description of the image/images of God directly expressed
or implied in the writing of a primary text of your religious
tradition. Cite the passages used to found your description. Provide a
brief statement of how this image is aligned with the official teaching
statements about God found in your tradition.
Enjoy!
All good Lutheran children have learned the phrase “fear and
love God” from their very first Confirmation class, because it is a theme that
runs throughout Luther’s Small Catechism (1529). Like most of his writings,
Luther’s Catechism was published because of his dyspeptic attitude toward
German clergy and their “deplorable, miserable condition” and called them “dumb
brutes and irrational swine.”[1]
In his simple explanation, then, of the 6th Commandment, Luther wrote, “You shall not commit
adultery. What does this mean? Answer: We should fear and love God so that we
may lead a pure and decent life in words and deeds, and each love and honor his
spouse.” And likewise the 3rd:
“You shall sanctify the holy day. What does this mean? Answer: We should fear
and love God that we may not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it
sacred, and gladly hear and learn it.” And one more, the 8th: “You shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor. What does this mean? Answer: We should fear and love God so that we
may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander or defame our neighbor, but defend
him, think and speak well of him and put the best construction on everything.”
For each of the commandments, the answer to “What does this
mean?” always begins with “We should fear and love God” and follows with
examples of how to break the commandment and how to keep the commandment.
Thus from childhood to our grave, good Lutherans are taught
what I call Lutheran dualism: the fear and love of God expressed in the concept
of Law and Gospel pervade each decision we make, each sermon we hear, each
relationship we maintain.
Though some of my instructors and pastors have tried to relax
the “fear” of God into the “respect” or even “honor” of God, I have reminded
each of my classes that the one and only reaction of any human who has ever
encountered the divine has been fear, and not just because they are primitive
brutes who have no concept of the Almighty. It is not for no reason that the
first words out of the angels’ mouth are “Do not be afraid.” We believe because
we have an image of a mildly dyspeptic Almighty on the ceiling of the Sistine
chapel nearly touching the finger of Adam that we could probably be in the same
room with I Am and not pee ourselves.
Not so. Fear in the face of Holy I believe is very healthy.
The idea of eternal punishment is not a hard hurdle to jump.
But before they begin to despair, I remind them of the Love
part too. That we have a God whose heart hurts when we sin, but who is
constantly beseeching us to return to him, the Waiting Father of the Prodigal
Son. This is a God of second chances, who never gives up on us poor miserable sinners.
Bred in the Lutheran bone, then, is the concept of Law and
Gospel, and this seeps into our image of God and our interactions with other
people. For example, I watched Men of a
Certain Age and one of the plot lines involved Owen needing to fire one of
his father’s employees for stealing. He and his father sat listening to the man
try to explain, and he said, “I needed the money, I shouldn’t have done it, I
can pay it back.” And the Father got right to the point: “I hired you and kept
you for 30 years, you son of a bitch, and you betrayed me. I don’t want to see
your face again.” That’s the Law applied, I said to my wife, to an unrepentant
sinner. The thief did not see the severity of his actions and therefore he
received the Fear and Wrath and Law of the father. Had he come cap in hand and
broken in sorrow over what he had done, and offered to make a public confession
to all those he had hurt, the reaction of a Lutheran, anyway, would have been
to calm his fear and not torture the sinner’s conscience, lest he despair.
In each situation we deal with, then, we think, “Does this
person need to feel the Fear of God or the Love of God?” A great litmus test
for whether you need to feel the Fear or the Love of God is to ask yourself to
respond to the phrase: “God is watching you.” If your conscience is seared, and
you don’t feel sin, you might hear “God is watching you - you’d better shape
up.” If your conscience is tortured, you might hear, “God is watching over
you.”
While it might seem to outsiders that we have turned God into
a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, our image of a Fearsome and Loving God provides a
balance that aligns with Luther’s idea of we are all simultaneously sinner and
saint. I’m very comfortable with that.
[1]
All quotations come from McCain, Timothy Paul, ed. Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, A Reader’s Edition of the Book of
Concord. Concordia, St. Louis. 2006
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